


Interpretive

by Ler



Series: Dance me to the End (of Love) [2]
Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, ballerina!Marianne, bartender!Bog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 04:17:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5149955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ler/pseuds/Ler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Bog waits, and Marianne delivers (herself, mostly).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interpretive

_Wanna know a secret?_

It’s ironic that Bog felt in love with Marianne when she was at her quietest, because she can be deafening with words like fangs and claws, but she also has arms like wings of a great bird and hair that helps her hide her eyes when she rises, flat foot to tip toe to point, to press her lips against his

She doesn’t make a sound when his huge and clumsy hands hold her head, pulse beating against his wrist, and bites back with teeth and tongue and stupid feelings he doesn’t know how to describe

Her cold fingers touch his wrists, and a cold nose stabs its point into his cheek, and she sways, falling forward and arching back, and they  _meld_

 

Bog falls in love with Marianne when she is her quietest, November wet and dreary on his windowsill, and she grins at his disapproving scrawl, ocean crashing behind her back, sunshine and gusts of air in her hair - he wants to touch it but can’t, because she is thousands of miles away and he is talking to her on a phone he didn’t know he ever needed, what the fuck is wrong with landline (this is what - she won’t be able to see his stupid face)

 

His hands streamline her, neck to shoulders to back to waist, and hers press against his chest, and claw at his clavicles, and bunch up his t-shit, and the lines of her nail marks rise up his neck, into his nape, and hide, wild beasts in waiting, in his coarse hair, one knitted brow to another, and his to hers to his, and the air between them is heavy with fury

They breath

A sting of saliva sits on his lip and Marianne stares, lively, doe-eyed, and shame bears down heavily on his shoulders, until he realizes that her feet are no longer touching the ground

\- she lost weight,  _she lost weight_  and how is it possible, she’s already paper-thin, bird bones and pale skin in constellations of poppy seed birthmarks, every twist, every turn - a cascade of moving muscle and stretching ligament against his touch –  _of course_  she’s always cold, her blood circulation is horrible -

He twirls them, foot kicking, rotating the stool to look his way - she hums in contempt when he sits her on it, pealing off her parka, pulling on her thick as hell woolen dress that is actually his thick as hell turtleneck sweater - no wonder he couldn’t find it, can’t find something that is not there - to discover two more sweaters under it

Marianne’s cheeks, frostbitten, kiss-flushed, plump up as she giggles about his exasperated fingers poking at her ribs trying to find excess where there never was one, but she doesn’t stop him, even if ticklish, knees spreading, leg nudging against his hip

His hands pull away but he bows to her, arms strong and hard and straight on the counter on either side of her, keeping his face straight, keeping his thoughts together

She laughs, brat, and combs his overgrown fringe away from his face, lopsided smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and tries to mirror it on his with her fingertips, and he is so not happy with her right now but he is not sure that his sneer is communicating it well enough

\- so he is not her father, but he can’t help it if Mr Fairfield fails to see that one day she will collapse, and it will all be Bog’s fault, somehow, but not because of his horrible influence, and that he doesn’t understand what maketh a ballet prima, but because, despite all of her assurances of emotional and intellectual maturity,  _he didn’t take care of her enough_  -

She presses two fingers over his sour scrawl, and a hand over his heart, and her thumb rubs circles at a wrinkle between his eyebrows, shaking her head, a quiet click of her tongue like  _he_  is the mess, like

 

Bog fell in love with Marianne, when for once, the world was louder than her and he could hear the heavy beat of his own battered heart and pretend it’s the sound of waves crashing on the other side of the globe, but when she spoke again, he felt that pieces of him were being washed away by this deceiving tide on far away shores, that held opportunities he had nothing to do with, so he snarled, and cut, and closed that door before the rest of him was pulled into the abyss and he started to ask for things he had no right to ask for

[then he walked around for two week, a dead weight thrown between regret and  _regret_  and nothing was right]

_I can’t stand the freaking cold_

 

Marianne intertwines her fingers at the back of his neck and pulls him down with her non-existent weight, falling back against the counter, face burying into his neck as he kisses her temple, his lungs filling with her, and pretends that he didn’t hear a tiniest sobbing gasp, or that her nails in his skin don’t make him want to run and hide so her life would be full and big and glorious like the whole world, and not just a medium-sized basement bar with a lanky bartender who haven’t shaved for two months

She hooks his legs with her feet, and latches onto him – he can’t move even if he wanted to (he doesn’t want to) – and presses lips and teeth against his pulse, slow at first and then suddenly urgent, tight and shaking, and he says her name, once, before they kiss again, this time with music of hungry pants and impatient moans

Bog tries to fit words,  _his_  words, between her hands and her mouth and his body writhing, brushing against his, words he feels he said all before, and yet, haven’t said at all,  _truly_ , but  _no_ , they are too loud for that, so he tries again, her way

Marianne’s language is something he is not versatile in, not yet, but he speaks out the best way he can, the safety of the bar counter abandoned for wool and polyester and skin beneath it all

She hisses – he almost pulls away immediately, but only partially, his hips in the clutches of her knees - when the cold air hits her skin, and pulls her five layers of clothing down, and purses her lower lip at his defensively raised hands, leftover wetness gluing her lashes together

He is not fluent in her language, but he understands fingers on the hoops of his jeans, and a searching look across his establishment, and a victorious smile, on encountering the – seriously? – utility closet door

Bog shakes his head – she nods in enthusiastic response, lips bitten, eyebrows rising

 

Bog falls in love with Marianne because something in him says she is the Sun, but sometimes he feels the need to strangle her, which doesn’t stop him from loving her, and her from making questionable decisions, like pulling him in the utility closet by the buckle of his belt and proceeding to undo that buckle

 

He has enough sense to close the door before she drops on her knees, and he understands what she is saying, and this is not the way he even saw that happening, she has a lovely cold-cracked and kiss-bruised lips and still cold crafty fingers, and she makes herself  _very clear_

Bog, in return, puts a palm of his hand over his mouth, as another drives his fingers into her messy hair, and tries to make himself  _very quiet_

_Tries_  – millennia later in the farthest of distances he hears the footsteps coming from the floor above, his mother probably worried about him leaving to close the bar and not coming back after civilizations crumbled into dust and all live ceased to existed, because Marianne has a magic mouth and he doesn’t really want to say  _no_  to her, and Marianne uses that to her advantage, continuously

His mother shuffles behind the door, talking to herself – no more than a habit, given a nerve-grating one – about things being thrown around, and clothes on the floor,  _must be Marianne_ , she says with happy warmth,  _that girl is a force of nature_

And he agrees, because the force of nature drags her teeth against his length, and bites on his hipbone

You don’t argue with a hurricane

He sucks on his lower lip and pulls her up – she wasn’t done, she clearly indicates, but - Bog tastes himself in her mouth, and the beer glasses clack against each other, as his mother, probably, washes them, water pouring in a thick stream, loud enough to cover their awkward fumbling on one square meter of the closet, her pants that are to thick to be leggings but to stretchy to be jeans being pulled down, barely, and her back pressed against his chest

She bites his hand she puts against her mouth, and he has to bend his knees, because the Uggs she wears are not made to have bloody heels

 

And as simple (but acrobatically uncomfortable) as that, they fuck

He licks the rim of her ear and pants against her temple

She throws an arm over his shoulder, eyes squeezed shut

 

He gets her off with two fingers over the roof of her clitoris, their orgasms strangled with clothes and moans behind tightly shut teeth, and a promise to make love to her, love her,  _love her_ , until air left his lungs for good

 

Bog fell in love with Marianne Fairfield when she went away and didn’t say when she’d be back

 

Marianne steps into his bar at 3AM, kicking in her suitcase, dumping her shoulder bag on the floor and puling a snow-covered fur-trimmed hood of her crow’s nest head

 

“ _Hey, smartass_ ,” she says like she was gone only a day instead of two months, « _I’m here_ »

 

_Give me back your ugly sweater_

 

**FIN**


End file.
